one week clean already!

Gevaldiggggg

KEEP ON TRUCKIN!!

amazing DY! Keep posting away!

Those who know me on this forum know I know a bit about learning - and , trust me - it doesn't help. not even one little bit - for an addict. Addicts need addiction stuff, not Torah.

Dear desperateyid,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

I noticed your poll on the top of the page. As many of the big Talmidei Chachamim on this forum will tell you, addiction is a sickness like "diabetes", and Torah doesn't help for addiction before we face the truth about ourselves. Only when we become human again, can Torah learning help us. See what Dov (sober in SA for over 10 years) wrote about this just yesterday over here. Dov is very wise and a very big talmid chacham. (Read his words a few times for better understanding).

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

One week clean - that's fantastic!

We're all here for you, no matter what - please keep us posted, and let us know what's going on! Share as much about your struggles as you feel comfortable with...

As far as learning, I think that 1) learning would help, if we could learn in the proper way, but considering that most people today have trouble doing that, and certainly we do (after having trouble with aissues in this area), learning is not able to be the total solution.

2) Can it help? Yeah...I think it does help, in many ways - as long as you're taking your medicine, which is, dealing with the addiction itself with the tools necessary for healing this disease.

And certainly, learning can't hurt. But you can't rely on that to solve the problem.

SB said it good!

Hey the zohar in parshas noach even says that the only cure for this is putting yourself in hashem's hands, try step 1 of the 12 steps. see more http://rehab-my-site.com/guardureyes/forum/index.php?topic=1436.0

Oh and please everyone be nice to me here. and don't be kofer CV in the gemara (sukkah, kedushin, others) that say "barasi Yetzer Hara Barasi Lo Torah Tavlin". SInce yes "mashcheihu lebais hamedrash" but that's only if your learning is with such a fire that "ukepatish yefotzeis selah", or if you are SO engrossed in Chachmas hatorah that you leave no area of your consentration available for destractions. And true reading Krias Shema may work, but you have to honestly be "mekabeil OHL malchus shamayim" and be ready to die sooner that be "bah al haNIDAH" even '70 attractive besulos'! remember that hugging/kissing and 'mesaper meachorei hageder' is YEHAREIG VELO YA'AVOR. So a PROPPER kias shma is a decloration that you will do exactly the opposite of your desires.  

That may well be true, SA - and I'm not asking you for revealing characteristics of who you are (after all, I already know, and I'll be plastering your ID all over the streets by tomorrow ).

However, let's be careful - we know these issues are important, but coming on too strong may actually cause some people to fall, by using too much fear and worry and stress.

Let's grow, slow and steady. Or fast and steady - whatever works for you, but the important thing is that it's continuous. Some ups, some downs, but never giving up!

true about the too srong part. For anyone wanting to know what SB was reffering to, I added it to my 'sefer' and it can be found in the beis medrash on one of the 'top sheves' . "Ayin sham"

yeshar koah for your different messages.just let me tell you, the thing which is mehazek osi is this deep rotson to do tshuva shown by everybody. by reading all the messages and posts i mamesh want to cry. ashreichem ysroel!!!
thanks to GYE for this zikuy horabim.

And know you're aprt of it - so ashreycha!

shemirateinayim wrote on 20 Jan 2010 19:18:


Um...sorry about this, but Torah is the eitzah for the Yetzer Hara. Not for someone who brings Tavah upon himself. Torah is not going to help. Not even on little bit. And since mareh mekomos seem to make us all happy, the Maharal  says a similar thought in the beginging of Netzah Yisrael, that the nations of the world do not require a yetzer hara. Neither does an addict. We can do averos without his help. The Gemara speaks of the Yetzer hara.
I'm with Dov on this one. And drop the kofer stuff. Perhaps others know shas pretty well, and perhaps interpet things differently.

just reminding you the sages in the same gemara u guoted "yumis v'al yisaper imuh meiachoirei hageder" didn't try to help that man with torah or krias shma. the gemara also knew there is something like an addiction. ( perhaps after too many times falling...uvar v'shuni...)

kanesher wrote on 22 Jan 2010 12:00:


Very interesting hilluk.. do you have any sources for it?
Lemaase it would explain why I was not succesful...

I saw once that they bring beshem Chid"a that learning maseches Makkos is a segula against hirhurim roim. (makkos begimatria hirhurim). They ask: but is not each learning toiro a asegula against yetzer hora? So they answer, that its davka belomed lishmo, but with makkos afilu im lomed shelo lishmo it helps.

(I tried didnt work..)

P.S. "they" is shaarim hametzujonim behalocho